Image from amazon.com
Among our 2017 book acquisitions for our Sinai 6000 library is surprisingly this more-than-half-century old publication, copywrite 1951 by AJH, reviewed 1979 by Sylvia Heschel. As we do with books we feature, we start with the CONTENTS which is what all book-browsers do before deciding whether a book is worth purchasing; then if there are reviews, we throw in as much as there are available on the net.
So here is the ‘Essays-List’, categorized under two general subjects and 26 subtitles; scanning down this list should already whet our appetite to get a copy of AJH’s book!
I. THE PROBLEM OF GOD
1. The Sense of the Ineffable
The Awareness Of Grandeur
The Sense Of The Ineffable
The Encounter With The Ineffable
Is There An Entrance To The Essence?
The Disparity Of Soul And Reason
2. Radical Amazement
Reason And Wonder
Philosophy Begins In Wonder
The Mystery Within Reason
Experience Without Expression
The Root Of Reason
3. The World is an Allusion
A Cognitive Insight
A Universal Perception
The Allusiveness Of Being
4. To Be is To Stand For
The Universality Of Reverence
Reverence – A Categorical Imperative
Meaning Outside The Mind
Expectedness And Certainty Of Meaning
Science–An Entry Into The Endless
All Knowledge Is A Particle
Is The Ineffable An Illusion?
5. Knowledge by Appreciation
A Perception At The End Of Perception
The Way Of Expediency
The Will To Wonder
The World As An Object
Is the World At The Mercy Of Man?
We Sing For All Things
6. A Question Beyond Words
We Do Not Know How To Ask
Wherefore? For Whose Sake?
Who Is “I”?
I Am That I Am Not
No Subject To Ask
7. The God of Philosophers
God As A Problem Of Speculation
Is It Order That Matters Supremely?
Philosophy Of Religion
8. The Ultimate Questions
What Man Does With His Ultimate Wonder
Religion Begins With The Sense Of The Ineffable
The Ultimate Question
The Situation That Accounts For The Question
Beyond Things
A Spiritual Presence
9. In The Presence of God
From His Presence To His Essence
The Dawn Of Faith
What To Do With Wonder
Who Is The Enigma?
The Invincible Question
In Search Of A Soul
The Premise Of Praise
Let The Insight Be
God Is Suing For Man
The Enforced Concern
10. Doubts
11. Faith
Faith Is No Short Cut
Ways To Faith
Some Of Us Blush
The Test Of Faith
An Act of Spirit
12. What do we mean by the Divine?
The Peril Of Speech
Standards Of Expression
What Do We Mean By The Divine?
The Attribute Of Perfection
The Idea Of The Universe
Cosmic Brotherhood
The Realm Of Being And The Realm Of Values
One Is Not God
13. One God
The Attraction Of Pluralism
Unity As A Goal
No Denial Of Plurality
Whither Shall I Go . . .
Hear, O Israel
One Means Unique
One Means Only
One Means The Same
Good And Evil
He Is All Everywhere
Unity Is Concern
14. God is the Subject
The “I” Is An “IT”
The Thought Of God Has No Facade
God’s Vision Of Man
Is God Unknowable?
Our Knowledge Is An Understatement
Knowledge Or Understanding
15. The Divine Concern
The Problem Of Existence
Life Is Concern
The Transitive Concern
The Three Dimensions
A Coercion To Forget Oneself
Freedom Is A Spiritual Ecstasy
The Divine Concern
Continuous Expression
Civilization Hangs By A Thread
Compassion
Display And Disguise
16. The Hiding God
17. Beyond Faith
The Peril Of Faith
To Believe Is To Remember
Faith As Individual Memory
Faith And Belief
Faith And Creed
The Idolatry Of Dogmas
Are Dogmas Necessary?
Faith And Reason
“Grant Us Knowledge . . .”
Religion Is More Than Inwardness
II. THE PROBLEM OF LIVING
18. The Problem of Needs
From Wonder To Piety
The Problem Of The Neutral
The Experience Of Needs
Life–A Cluster Of Needs
The Inadequacy Of Ethics
The Peril Of Living
Needs Are Not Holy
Who Knows His Real Needs?
Right And Wrong Needs
19. The Meaning Of Existence
Man’s Favorite Unawareness
The Meaning Of Existence
The Ultimate Surmise
Man Is Not An End For Himself
Does Man Exist For The Sake Of Society?
The Self-Annihilation Of Desire
The Quest Of The Lasting
The Helpless Craving
What Is Existence?
The Temporality Of Existence
The Uninterruptedness Of Existence
The Secret Of Existence
In Being We Obey
The Ultimate Goal
Time And Eternity
20. The Essence Of Man
The Uniqueness Of Man
In The Darkness Of Potentiality
Between God And The Beasts
Beyond Our Needs
Who Is In Need Of Man?
21. The Problem of Ends
Biological And Cultural Needs
The Myth About Self-Expression
Ends and Needs
The Error Of Pan-Psychology
The Consciousness Of Good And Evil
God’s Secret Weapon
Life Is Tridimentional
21. What is Religion?
How To Study Religion
Is Religion A Function Of The Soul?
Magic And Religion
The Objective Side of Religion
There Is No Neutrality
The Holy Dimension
Piety Is A Response
The Modesty Of The Spirit
23. A Definition of Jewish Religion
God Is In Need of Man
The Divine Pathos
“What Does God Desire?”
The Religious Need
The Unknown Ends
The Conversion Of Ends Into Means
The Pleasure Of Good Deeds
24. The Great Yearning
The Yearning For Spiritual Living
The Noble Nostalgia
The Endless Discontent
Aspirations
25. A Pattern For Living
The Unvoiced
Neither Deifying Nor Vilifying
Spirit And Flesh
In The Neighborhood Of God
The Holy Within The Body
Not To Sacrifice But To Sanctify
Needs As Mitzvot
Living Within An Order
All Of Life
The Unheroic
The Inner Authority
26. The Pious Man
What Is Piety?
The Method of Analyses
An Attitude of the Whole Man
The Only Life Worth Living
The Inner Anonymity
Not A Habit
Wisdom And Piety
In The Presence Of God
God Stands Between Man And The World
A Life Compatible With The Presence Of God
The Value Of Reality
An Attitude Toward All Of Reality
Reverence
Thankfulness
Common Deeds Are Adventures
Responsibility
A Perpetual Gift
The Meaning Of Sacrifice
Kinship With The Divine
A Treasure of God
Our Destiny Is To Aid
We end this post with the one and only review we found, posted in amazon.com:
Man Is Not Alone is a profound, beautifully written examination of the ingredients of piety: how man senses God’s presence, explores it, accepts it, and builds life upon it.
Abraham Joshua Heschel’s philosophy of religion is not a philosophy of doctrine or the interpretation of a dogma. He erects his carefully built structure of thought upon foundations which are universally valid but almost generally ignored.
It was Man Is Not Alone which led Reinhold Niebuhr accurately to predict that Heschel would “become a commanding and authoritative voice not only in the Jewish community but in the religious life of America.”
With its companion volume, God in Search of Man, it is revered as a classic of modern theology.
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